NFL Insider: Cleveland Browns' restricted free agents lack leverage

Joshua Gunter / The Plain DealerBrowns running back Jerome Harrison is still unsigned.The five Browns' restricted free agents who haven't signed their one-year contract tenders have no leverage to force long-term deals and might soon see the club's offers reduced.

Under terms of the current rules, if the players don't sign their one-year tenders by June 15, the Browns can substitute new offers just 10 percent above their base salaries of 2009. In most cases, this would be a substantial decrease from the current contract tenders the players have declined to sign.

"It's definitely an option we have discussed," said General Manager Tom Heckert.

"But nobody wants to go down that road because it brings bad blood. At the same time, we want the guys in here. I've talked to most of the [RFAs], or their agents. We're not in negotiations with any of them. But to say we won't do an extension, that's not the case, either.

"We want guys in and then we'll see what happens. We hope it doesn't get to June 15."

All of the four-year players have been given one-year offers of $1.759 million. For Roth, a five-year player, the offer was $1.809 million.

If the Browns exercise the option of reducing their offers, the losses to four of the players would be substantial because they were in the final year of their original rookie contracts in 2009.

Vickers would get about $589,000 instead of $1.759 million. Harrison would get $593,000, Jackson would get $704,000 and Roth would get $770,000. Elam, who was also a restricted free agent last year, would get $1.65 million.

Here's a primer on the restricted free agent situation:

Q: Why are these players in this position?

A: When the owners opted out of the collective bargaining agreement in September -- with the intention of forging a new CBA -- it eliminated the salary cap and triggered other changes. One change increased the years it took to qualify for unrestricted free agency from four years to six years. These players were among 210 league-wide caught in the middle and were reduced to restricted free agency.

Teams protect themselves from losing RFAs by extending qualifying offers that require draft-choice compensation in return for losing them. The deadline for RFAs to sign with another team was April 15.

Q: Are other teams as affected by this as the Browns?

A: As of this weekend, 44 RFAs were still unsigned. The Ravens have the most with six. The Browns and Chargers are next with five each.

A: They can sign their one-year tenders and try to negotiate long-term deals later. They can remain unsigned and skip their teams' off-season workouts and minicamps, but risk having reduced offers June 15. If player does not sign by Week 10 of the regular season, he cannot play in 2010 and loses a year of service time toward his pension and other benefits.

Q: Why wouldn't the Browns sign long-term deals with these players?

A: In some cases, they might. But the new regime headed by President Mike Holmgren and Heckert wants to see them in action with their own eyes before committing future money to them.

Q: Why wouldn't the Browns seek to trade one or more of these players?

A: They want them back, for the most part. Plus, the market is dried up around the league and there isn't a great demand for them.

"If you don't have good cornerbacks, your safeties are going to have their work cut out for them," Heckert said. "If there's a safety -- really, really good -- we'd have no problem taking him [over a cornerback]."

The Browns had Tennessee safety Eric Berry rated ahead of Florida cornerback Joe Haden, but Berry was taken two notches ahead of the Browns' No. 7 pick by Kansas City.

The Browns inquired about trading up with Kansas City at No. 5 to take Berry, but the Chiefs never got back to them and liked Berry too much to give him up for what probably would have been a third-round draft choice.

With Berry gone, the Browns considered Boise State cornerback Kyle Wilson and Texas safety Earl Thomas, along with Haden. Thomas wasn't as high on the Browns' draft board as Berry, Haden or Wilson. No T.O.: Heckert isn't ruling out adding a veteran receiver before training camp, but he has ruled out veteran free agent Terrell Owens, who remains unsigned.

Owens and Heckert were together in Philadelphia for the 2004 and '05 seasons. Even though the Eagles made the Super Bowl with Owens, their leading receiver in '04, Heckert said Owens, 36, "is not on our radar."

"That's not the direction we're headed," he said. "There's a lot of factors that go into that. I think at this stage of his career, this isn't a place he'd be looking at. We don't plan on talking to him."

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